Should Employers Fire Employees Over Off-the-Job Bad Behaviour?

Is it OK for an employer to fire someone for how they behave off the job? What standards should apply? Are there any substantive or procedural limits? Or is it sufficient that your employer doesn’t like what you did? This item is about a guy who acted like a sexist jerk in public. But he wasn’t at work, and the occasion wasn’t in any way job-related. Is it ethically OK for his employer to have fired him? (Tip to students: to answer this question, set aside for the moment your own moral judgment about his behaviour.) >>>

Hydro One was wrong to fire its hooligan employee over #FHRITP (Canadian Business magazine.)

A substantial minority of men are capable of boorish, sexist behaviour in public. A world in which all such men were unemployed would not be a better world.

Everyone by now has seen the video that led Hydro One to fire one of its employees. The government-owned electricity distribution company fired engineer Shawn Simoes after he and friends shouted vulgarities at a female news reporter during a live broadcast at a soccer match in Toronto.

This much is clear: what Simoes did was boorish, and offensive…..

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